FINDING MY RELIGION / Wendy Moore creates her own spirituality

Published 4:00 am, Monday, July 24, 2006

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FINDING MY RELIGION / Wendy Moore creates her own spirituality

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If you can't find a religion that moves you, why not invent one?

America has a long history of do-it-yourself spirituality going back at least far as Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists. And that desire to "roll your own religion" shows no sign of fading away. A September 2005 Newsweek poll found eight in 10 Americans do not believe any one faith is the sole path to salvation. So it's no surprise that some are weaving together strands from a variety of faiths to create their own personal religions.

Wendi Moore-Buysee, a 36-year-old motivational speaker and life coach, is one of the many people who have created their own faiths. Moore took bits from Eastern and Western religions and combined them with a dash of metaphysics and a dose of paganism. She's not looking for converts. Instead, she works with people to help them connect with their own personal god or goddess. Moore lives in Minneapolis, and I spoke with her by phone last week.

Tell me a little bit about the religious tradition you were raised in.

I grew up in a small town in the middle of Illinois. I was baptized Methodist, but I was raised in a First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Church was kind of an off-and-on sort of thing. We went for a while and we stopped going, and then we started going again. But my family has become very religious in the past 15 or 20 years.

What do you mean by "very religious"?

My mom in particular has gone from being a Presbyterian to a Baptist, and she's gotten more and more conservative in her Christianity. She lives in the Chicago area and volunteers regularly at the Billy Graham Center. She's in church all of the time.

You told me that no longer consider yourself a Christian. Why is that, would you say? What didn't work for you?

None of it worked for me. I went to Sunday school when I was growing up, but I didn't believe any of it. It was just something I did because my mom forced me to do it.

And what were the circumstances under which you left the church?

I had a miscarriage, and while I was pregnant I felt like I had a connection with the soul of the child. After the miscarriage, I wanted to know what happened to that soul.

I explored Christianity, but I didn't get any answers that satisfied me. The preacher at the church where I was attending suggested I take a class on metaphysics taught by a local woman. I ended up studying with her for two years and learning about life after death, intuition and all kinds of stuff that really resonated with me.

At the time, I was teaching an adult Sunday school class at my church, and there was a man in the class who was a pretty conservative Christian. I think he helped push me away from Christianity, too, just because he had such strong views. He wasn't really open to listening. He was right and that was it.

How did your family react to your decision to leave their faith?

They were terribly upset -- very, very upset. My mom and I had arguments for two years or more over this. She would tell me about her religious life, but she didn't want to hear anything about mine. And it got to the point where I just quit talking about it. It's more important to me that I have a relationship with her than that she has to know about what I'm doing religion-wise.

How would you describe your faith now? What do you believe in, and what don't you believe in?

I believe that everybody's belief system is right for them. Mine is right for me, yours is right for you, my mom's is right for her and so on. I don't believe in judging each other the way that I see happening in Christianity and other religions.

What I've done is take a little bit from the Buddhists, a little bit from Christianity, a little bit from metaphysics and the pagans and a lot from the Tao-te Ching.

What about Taoism appeals to you?

What I love about Taoism is that it talks about how everything is made of energy. The Tao is basically energy. It's not a god. It's not anything in particular. And you can tap into it. You can create things from it. We are made from it and we return to it.

So there isn't some man in the sky waiting to send you to hell every time you do something wrong, you know? And there is no Santa Claus sitting, waiting to reward you for doing good things, either. You are in control and you are responsible for your own life.

The sort of eclectic spirituality you're describing is appealing to many people. But do you ever think that by picking and choosing from different religious traditions there might be a temptation to choose -- for lack of a better term -- the "fun" things and avoid the difficult things, like moral codes?

It really depends upon the person and the situation. I take what resonates with me from each religion. It's not necessarily what's fun -- it's more a matter of what works. But you are right that some people might do that, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Anyway, I think moral codes are just religion's excuse to judge other people.

So in your view there is no right and wrong? It's all relative? Murder? Genocide? They might be OK?

You know what? If somebody kidnapped one of my kids and I had to kill that person in order to save my child, you bet your ass I'd do that.

I don't believe in right or wrong. It just is. If it feels like something that I should do, then I'll do it. Or if it feels like something that I shouldn't do, then I won't do it.

People who follow traditional religious paths often enjoy having a sense of certainty about their beliefs. And they have a community of like-minded people to worship with, authorities they can turn to for guidance, that sort of thing. Do you, as the creator of your own spirituality, have that sense of certainty?

Absolutely, because I am the one who is in control. As long as I am the one who is in control and I am responsible for everything that happens in my life, of course there is certainty.

But there are so many things you can't control that might affect you. There are senseless crimes, wars, global warming, to name a few. Doesn't that make you wonder about how much control you really have?

I don't see how any of that is affecting me personally. I go on with my life. If there is something I can do to prevent global warming, I'll do what I can. But my life goes on as normal.

What sources do you turn to when you need comfort, guidance or spiritual inspiration?

I meditate. That's all I need to do.

You work with people to help them develop their intuitive abilities. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

I work mostly with women in leadership positions or who are moving in that direction. I help them find out where they want to go, and we put a plan together to make that happen.

I'm trying to get a sense of when you say you are "helping people develop their intuition." What does that mean?

It means being able to, first of all, meditate, go inside yourself and be quiet, to make that connection with whatever they believe in. If they believe in God, or if they believe in the Tao or the universe or the goddess, fine! Whatever it is, you make that connection and then move forward from there. Once you do that, you start to get information that can help you along.

What sort of information?

It could be dreams that are coming true. It could be intuition about certain things that might happen.

Do you believe everyone is intuitive? Why don't more people use this ability?

Everyone has intuition, yes. Religion has blocked that for a lot of people. I just read an article on the Internet by a man -- a very conservative Christian -- who said: "Don't do yoga, because that makes you meditate and that makes you take responsibility for your own life. It makes you start thinking for yourself." That's what intuition does, and that's why very conservative Christians are afraid of it.

I have to say that I think that there are plenty of Christians who don't believe that, and there are many of them who meditate and do yoga as well.

Yeah, but there still are those people out there, like this gentleman who wrote that article, who say, "Don't go that way, because it's a sin."

You have two kids. What do you tell them about religion and spirituality?

That it's everybody's choice, and if it works for somebody, then it works for them. Don't ever knock somebody else's religion, because it does work for them.

Finding My Religion wants to hear from you. Send comments on stories and suggestions for interview subjects to miller@sfgate.com.

During his far-flung career in journalism, Bay Area writer and editor David Ian Miller has worked as a city hall reporter, personal finance writer, cable television executive and managing editor of a technology news site. His writing credits include Salon.com, Wired News and The New York Observer.

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